'Smart decisions' advised as N.W.T.'s COVID-19 public health emergency draws to a close

After just over two years, public health orders in the N.W.T. related to COVID-19 will come to an end at midnight, along with the public health emergency.

That means nomore travel restrictions and no more mandatory masking indoors. People will also no longer be required to isolate if they're sick though masking and isolation measures still remain as suggestions.

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola said Thursday it also means residents will have to determine their own level of comfortwith resuming activities and shedding masks.

"Residents will be responsible for making smart decisions to help protect themselves and their fellow community members," she said.

"COVID-19 isn't going away, and it will likely remain in some form or another as a seasonal illness that mainly occurs over the winter months."

As of Friday, people flying or driving into the N.W.T. will notice the absence of COVID Secretariat staff to check their self-isolation plans, which will become a thing of the past.

Kandola said the secretariat will be wound down further over the next few weeks, though it will retain some core staff. Initiatives such as the 811 hotline.

Emergency management

Sonya Saunders, the assistant deputy minister of regional operations for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, said with all the emergencies the N.W.T. has experienced recently its worst fire season, its worst floods and now the pandemic the territory plans to bolster its emergency management resources.

She said the department's focus is going to be on improving its support to communities in the event of any future COVID-19 outbreaks. That means bringing in a regional position focused on emergency management.

"Just as we have learned lessons about natural disasters and how to assist communities ... we will apply similar approaches to COVID needs and responses," she said.

The territory does expect to see a "spring wave", Kandola said, with COVID-19 cases rising over the next few weeks.

As of Thursday afternoon, the government's website showed 630 active cases of COVID-19. Of those, 286 are in Yellowknife and 267 are in the Beaufort Delta.

Since the pandemic began in March 2020, the N.W.T. has seen 11,309 confirmed cases, 106 hospitalizations and 29 ICU admissions. Twenty-one people in the territory have died.